Average Typing Speed
Most adults type around 40 words per minute. People who volunteer for online typing tests average closer to 52 WPM. Here is where those numbers come from, and where you sit.
Find your place on the curve
Drag the slider (it starts at your last result if you have one). The curve is a normal approximation of the study data: mean 51.6 WPM, standard deviation about 20.
At 45 WPM you would type faster than roughly 37% of the people in the study: around average.
Jump to a speed: 30 WPM40 WPM50 WPM60 WPM70 WPM80 WPM90 WPM100 WPM
What the research found
The best dataset comes from Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson and Oulasvirta, "Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes" (CHI 2018). Around 168,000 volunteers typed English sentences online. Key results:
- Average speed 51.6 WPM, with a wide spread: most people fell between roughly 30 and 75 WPM.
- Average error rate about 2 percent of characters left uncorrected; people corrected many more as they went.
- The fastest typists were not simply quicker at pressing keys. They overlapped keystrokes (pressing the next key before releasing the last) and made fewer corrections.
- Touch typists were faster on average, but some self-taught typists using fewer fingers also reached high speeds.
Because people who take an online typing study tend to type more than average, the figure of about 40 WPM quoted by schools and employers is a fair estimate for adults in general.
Averages at a glance
| Group | Typical speed | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Adults, general figure | ≈ 40 WPM | Common rule of thumb |
| Online study volunteers, physical keyboard | 51.6 WPM | Dhakal et al., CHI 2018 |
| Mobile phone keyboards | ≈ 36 WPM | Palin et al., MobileHCI 2019 |
| Professional typists and transcribers | 65–80+ WPM | Typical job listings |
Wondering what score to aim for? See what counts as a good WPM, or test your speed now.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average typing speed?
The largest published study, Dhakal et al. (CHI 2018), measured about 168,000 volunteers and found an average of 51.6 WPM with 94 percent accuracy. The popular figure of about 40 WPM reflects the wider population, including people who never learned to touch type.
What is the average WPM for a teenager?
Teenagers who type every day often land in the 30 to 50 WPM range, depending heavily on practice. There is no single authoritative average by age.
What is the average typing speed by age?
There is no authoritative table of typing speed by age. Large online samples tend to find teenagers and people in their twenties among the fastest, with speed easing gradually later in life, but how much someone types day to day matters far more than age.
Is 40 words per minute slow?
No. Around 40 WPM is the commonly quoted adult average. It is a little below the 51.6 WPM average of the volunteers in the Dhakal et al. study, who were people choosing to take a typing test.
Is the average typing speed on a phone different?
Yes. A 2019 study by Palin et al. of 37,000 volunteers found an average of about 36 WPM on mobile keyboards, with two-thumb typists faster than one-finger typists.